Please note: we have been online over ten years, and we want The Trek BBS to continue as a free site. But if you block our ads we are at risk.Please consider unblocking ads for this site - every ad you view counts and helps us pay for the bandwidth that you are using. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome! The Trek BBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans. Please login to see our full range of forums as well as the ability to send and receive private messages, track your favourite topics and of course join in the discussions.

If you are a new visitor, join us for free. If you are an existing member please login below. Note: for members who joined under our old messageboard system, please login with your display name not your login name.

They couldn't take the risk that somebody might SEE the communicator disappear in a flash of a transporter effect.

Right.

Because sending people armed with phase pistols was a much better plan.

The risk of somebody seeing the communicator disappear into thin air would be much greater than sending crewmembers in, undercover, who might be able to grab the communicator and get away without anyone noticing. The fact that it got more complicated doesn't change the fact that the risk that it would do so was less.

__________________
"But here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE!" - Billy Joel

The risk of somebody seeing the communicator disappear into thin air would be much greater than sending crewmembers in, undercover, who might be able to grab the communicator and get away without anyone noticing. The fact that it got more complicated doesn't change the fact that the risk that it would do so was less.

But as ArcherNX01 has pointed out, so what if someone did? Anyone who claimed to have seen it vanish into thin air would just be accused of stealing or losing it. Look at what happened to Doc Silberman in T3 - he saw the T-1000 in action with his own eyes, and still managed to more or less convince himself he'd been delusional at the time.

^ You saw what that society was like. Very warlike and paranoid. What if the disappearance of the communicator provoked fears that the other side had developed a doomsday weapon, and thus both sides went to war and destroyed themselves?

__________________
"But here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE!" - Billy Joel

^ You saw what that society was like. Very warlike and paranoid. What if the disappearance of the communicator provoked fears that the other side had developed a doomsday weapon, and thus both sides went to war and destroyed themselves?

If they're that ignorant, they deserve whatever hell they bring down on themselves.